Of Human Bondage series

(On Cable TV, February 2020) In retrospect, it wasn’t such an idea to watch all three filmed adaptations (1934, 1946 and 1964) of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage back-to-back-to-back. Not so much because they all blend together (they all have their own particularities) but because their story is so trite that a triple dose of it can be overdoing it. This third version is, in almost a tautological way, the most modern of them: the camera moves and the staging are self-consciously cinematic as opposed to the quasi-theatrical way the first two movies were directed. The use of deep shadow, more naturalistic sets and less expensive costumes don’t necessarily work in the film’s favour, especially when measured against the first film. While this Of Human Bondage is a bit more daring, story-wise, than its Hays Era predecessor, it does remain curiously stiff and old-fashioned, something that the black-and-white cinematography doesn’t help even at its most visually three-dimensional. While the film’s technique narrowly gives it a second-place finish in the remake trilogy, the narrowness is against the third-place finish for the 1946 version and not the untouchable 1934 one.

(On Cable TV, February 2020) In retrospect, it wasn’t such an idea to watch all three filmed adaptations (1934, 1946 and 1964) of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage back-to-back-to-back. Not so much because they all blend together (they all have their own particularities) but because their story is so trite that a triple dose of it can be overdoing it. This second version is probably the worst of the three—or at least the least interesting. It does crank up the melodrama, but doesn’t quite manage to catch up to the grandeur of the first adaptation—although it’s probably a bit more accessible, taking into account twelve years of improved filmmaking and decreased stiffness from the actors. This being said, it’s also the weakest from a cinematographic standpoint: Even when broadcast on TCM—known to use the highest-quality copies available—, this Of Human Bondage suffers from high-contrast cinematography, with details being absorbed in the overwhelming blackness of the picture. Story-wise, the film also suffers (read: is made boring) from having been made at the nadir of the Hays Code era—it’s remarkably tamer than its pre-Code forebear or post-Code successor. This 1946 version is nowhere as essential as the first film’s star-launching role for Bette Davis nor as relatively modern as the 1964 version…, which is another way of saying that’s probably not worth watching unless you’re really going to be a completist.